


Rescuing the Janes of the World

by Wordwitch



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Movies), Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: 1920s, Backstory, Childhood, Gen, Kid Fic, New York City, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordwitch/pseuds/Wordwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jane," Bucky whispered dreamily. Stevie hid his grin in both hands; here among the lower levels of the trees, there was no chance for the young Baltimore socialite to see either of them, and also Miss LaDora never noticed any male person under the age of 30. Tarzan could pine in safety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescuing the Janes of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are the property of Marvel Comics. Robert Canler, Jane Porter, Paul d'Arnot, and Tarzan, John Clayton, are the property of the Burroughs Estate. All other characters are my own. Permission is given by me to use such other characters so long as their relationship to the others in this fic is preserved.

"Tarzan!" Stevie hissed down the stairs, sliding three more steps at once as shrieks and roars echoed through the staircase. "What beasts are these, monn ammy?"

Bucky popped up from the next set of stairs down, eyes glowing blue, and grinning like a fiend, a paring knife he'd found someplace in the distant wilds outside the tenement bound around his waist. "It is Kerchak, Paul! He is angered I have escaped!" They were both using the best French accents they could manage, gleaned from the radio operas. Buck shifted into a deep guttural, trying out his "English:" "Tarzan kill him soon! Him bad chief!"

Three floors down, Akakiy Sobota continued to complain about the new supervisor for his work crew. Two above them, Silke Kettler enunciated the points of unreason of her father's dislike of her most recent beau. This floor held at least three babies unresigned to their current condition. It sounded just like the jungle. Tarzan was helping Paul D'Arnot to safety at the edge of it. Bucky was in heaven, and so was Stevie. Adventure!

Every day, Stevie got down a few more sets of stairs before Bucky had to help him back up to the Rogers' apartment. They were determined to make the front door, seven floors down from here, by the end of July. Meanwhile, their neighbors filled out a cast of hundreds of dangers, allies, and rescuees. And here came another.

Bucky pulled out the branch full of dried leaves that had been stuck through the other side of his rope-belt, and held it up in front of himself and Stevie, who he'd squashed against the wall. Isadora LaDora locked up behind herself, and swayed over to the railing, heedless of two more of the countless children that raced, or climbed, or sat in the hallways playing. Miss LaDora was fully made up, face pale and pink, lips and nails Chinese red, blond hair perfectly curled, shiny cotton skirt close and elegant. She was ready for a night on the town.

"Jane," Bucky whispered dreamily. Stevie hid his grin in both hands; here among the lower levels of the trees, there was no chance for the young Baltimore socialite to see either of them, and also Miss LaDora never noticed any male person under the age of 30. Tarzan could pine in safety. Stevie's grin dropped, though, at the footsteps from further up the stairs, and he poked Bucky hard.

"That dog Canler is coming!" he hissed. "He'll grab Mamzelle Porter for sure!" Bucky's eyes, suddenly hard, swung upstairs to where Tom Gannon was thumping his way down.

Tom Gannon called Miss LaDora bad names. Bucky was finding out what they meant, and sharing with Stevie: they were downright disrespectful. And he would bump into her, try to make her fall down, which was not only rude, and mean, but dangerous.

"Come on, monn frere," Stevie hissed, just as Bucky was saying "Can you make it to that tree there, Paul?" pointing out the stair halfway back up the set they'd just completed. Setting his jaw, Stevie began climbing. The rest had done him a world of good, and he was able to make it in a scant couple of minutes, settling himself in the middle of the staircase, his back to the upper levels, his ears peeled for the approaching bully.

Bucky had discarded his tree branch and hopped over to Miss LaDora.

"Hi, Miss! Lovely evening, ain't it! Yer eyes just shine like the stars in the twilight outside!" When it came to rescuing Jane - or any of the Janes of the world - there was no time for jungle manners.

Miss LaDora seemed surprised to be addressed by an urchin at all, let alone with compliments, and she peered down at him with charmed suspicion. "Uh .. hello, kid," she answered cautiously, her voice wavering abruptly from baritone to contralto.

"I'm James Barnes," Bucky lied cheerfully - his name was John Clayton, or Tarzan, or (in the absence of other adventure) Bucky, but the lovely dame might need to find him under his nomm de residence, and he wouldn't want to make her job hard. "I hafta go down to see Mr Chupery on Two. Kin I walk down with you?" Miss LaDora smiled warily, but he could see she couldn't come up with a good reason why not, so he started bouncing down the stairs beside her, acting like a little kid rather than the viciously lethal Lord of the Jungle that he was. Guile, you know. He'd have to see what Stevie thought about him taking Guile as a middle name.

The Green Hornet was full of Guile. Maybe they should play Green Hornet sometime.

He kept chattering away, pretending like he thought she was a lot older than he was, like she might be a maiden auntie or something, keeping his ears peeled for Phase One and Paul D'Arnot's own Guile.

He was still not well from his injuries, Missyurr D'Arnot, but Stevie had figured out how to make asthma into a ploy, and Paul D'Arnot could make even his savage beating a step in gaining victory.

From above, he heard Stevie cry out in pain - he knew it was a lie, Stevie never said nothing when when he hurt, just wheezed some more - and yell "Hey, Mister! Watch out!"

Bucky could hear doors popping open, and knew neighbors were looking out. A lot of people liked Stevie, and hoped he lived to see six. They'd be durn perturbed if anything but asthma or the chicken pox got him.

He grinned to himself at the hubbub of voices: Canler was being delayed, Canler was being thrown off-guard. Soon it would be Tarzan's turn to show that filthy dog what happened to blackguards that targeted women. Dames. Ladies. He danced a few steps down in front of Miss LaDora so he could turn around and talk to her as they went down the stairs, and also so he would see when Tom Gannon got there.

He was just demonstrating the additional rules for stickball when one team member had to be in a fixed position when Gannon finally showed his sneering, angry face. Bucky could tell he didn't know off the bat just who it was going down the stairs with Bucky. Maybe Guile would actually carry the day. Maybe he'd been so distracted he wouldn't actually look at Miss LaDora as he went by.

Bucky could see right away when that changed; Tarzan knew when Canler had spotted Miss Porter. Knew when he decided to carry her off and hurt her. Dog. Scum. _Dango_!

"Hey! Mister!" he chirped in his little-boy disguise. Gannon ripped his eyes from Miss LaDora to him, his constant "beat it, kid" rising to his lips.

Bucky gave him an open, blue-eyed bright smile.

"My dad says yer a Yanks fan!"

With a roar, Canler rushed Tarzan, who fled with catcalls and hoots of derision, leading the dog safely past poor Jane and down through the shadowed halls of the jungle, Sabor and Hista crying their own defiance, Tantor bugling his rage and promising help. Tarzan could hear his own goal coming up: the Mangani gathered, muttering together, primed for the Dum-Dum.

Bucky skidded into the foyer in the middle of the circle of chairs, gasping, giving off little sobs of fear, turning his horrified eyes up at the Mammas and Grammas sitting around gossiping in the cool of the evening. One of them was his own, but she knew his tricks, and he aimed his trap at Nona Sarfati, who still called him a little angel.

"He's gonna get me!"

A moment later, Tom Gannon hurled himself into the middle of what proved to be the most lethal situation he would ever encounter.

As Bucky, still heaving the occasional giggle, hauled himself back up to where Miss LaDora was making her elegant way down the third floor stair, she graced him with a brilliant smile.

"Why, James Barnes. I believe you did that on purpose!"

He caught at his breath, but she winked at him, and continued on down the stairs. She knew, and he knew, that she wouldn't need his escort any more tonight. What she didn't know was that the whole plan had been Stevie's.

Much later, both of them still wheezing and giggling under the blankets, Bucky whispered to Stevie, "I think maybe Tom Gannon hates Miss LaDora because sometimes she's a boy. Man. Gentleman. I think she's Mr Doran."

Seriously, Stevie answered, "The chemist?" Bucky nodded. "That's even worse," Stevie declared. "Mr Doran runs the best drugstore in this neighborhood." Everybody knew that was true. And everybody in their tenement knew the only reason Stevie had made it to his fourth birthday was the line of credit Mr Doran had given his parents over that really bad winter.

They both thought about it.

"She can be a chemist if she wants to," Stevie said firmly.  
"Durn tootin'," Bucky answered. "If she has to be a boy to be a chemist, and has to be a girl to be pretty, it still ain't any of Tom Gannon's beeswax."

"Bullies," Stevie spat.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve Rogers grew up with asthma and debilitating childhood diseases in 1920s New York, in a Bronx tenement. When you have to move slowly through the world, you have time to observe a whole lot. His best friend zoomed around him at high speed, always keeping a sharp eye on Steve and on Steve's surroundings. Bucky had the range to see a whole lot. They spent a lot more time with each other than either one of them spent being "influenced" by well-meaning adults, and a lot of time making their own conclusions about what they saw.
> 
> I decline to believe either of them were either ignorant or unthinkingly prejudiced. I decline to believe that Steve, specifically, can blush at anything not aimed directly at him. (Bucky blush? by accident??)
> 
> Thingswithwings has been doing some [research](http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/213805.html) into this matter which I commend to you.


End file.
